Kennedy’s Resignation From Stanford Called Sad, Necessary

Friends and critics of Stanford University President Donald Kennedy on Tuesday portrayed his resignation as sad but inevitable, given the painful publicity and financial fallout from the school’s alleged abuses of federal research funds.

However, Kennedy’s departure does not signify the end of the national controversy over research spending.

A criminal investigation into the matter remains pending at Stanford while universities around the nation face federal audits and tighter government spending rules. But no other school president is expected to resign as a result, education officials said.

“The issue has extended to a lot of other universities, but I think there is no sense in academia or in Washington that the issue for other universities will be as big as it was at Stanford,” said David Merkowitz, director of public affairs at the American Council on Education. “No one is talking about a couple of hundred million dollars at any other institution.”

Robert Rosenzweig, president of the Assn. of American Universities, the group of top research schools, said that most institutions began to examine their federal research contracts earlier this year after congressional investigators alleged that Stanford overbilled taxpayers as much as $200 million in the last decade.

“I don’t think Don Kennedy’s presence or absence will change things,” said Rosenzweig, a former administrator at Stanford.

Kennedy, who has been president since 1980, announced his resignation from the $195,000-a-year job Monday, effective August, 1992. On Tuesday, speculation about an on-campus successor centered on James Gibbons, dean of the School of Engineering, and A. Michael Spence, dean of the Graduate School of Business. Faculty and staffers also said Stanford would look nationwide and possibly consider Nanneri Keohane, president of Wellesley College in Massachusetts, as the first woman to head Stanford.

At a news conference Tuesday, Kennedy said he recently realized that Stanford needed a change at the top. “We’ve had more than our share of major trouble the past year--it’s not been a whole lot of fun,” he said.

Kennedy said he accepted responsibility for the spending problems but not the blame, which he attributed to faulty accounting. He insisted that Stanford trustees had not asked him to leave.

Kennedy, 59, joined the Stanford faculty in biological sciences in 1960. He served as commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration for 2 1/2 years during the Carter Administration before returning to Stanford and becoming provost and then chief executive.

His resignation elicited mixed feelings on campus.

“There is a sadness with this thing,” said Stanford electrical engineering professor William Spicer, who has been a Kennedy critic. “But there is a very strong feeling that the leadership had failed at the university and the concern now is over how we can handle the next year.”

Paul Seaver, a history professor and Kennedy ally, said many professors regret Kennedy’s resignation, but added: “Nobody will feel this is an unconsidered decision on his part and most of us will not be surprised. It’s been an extraordinarily difficult year.”

Stanford recently was hit with repeated bad publicity: A lecturer was fired under government pressure for admitting that he brought drugs to campus and the medical school was embroiled in complaints from a woman professor and female students of sexual harassment.

Knowledgeable sources speculated that Stanford’s announcement last week of in-house accounting reforms made this a good time for Kennedy’s resignation. He didn’t want to depress people at the school’s centennial celebrations this fall and the campus is relatively empty this time of year, easing the shock, the sources theorized.

Admirers said Kennedy should be remembered for adding non-Western materials to the curriculum despite opposition from conservatives, stressing good teaching of undergraduates, increasing the number of minority students, boosting fund raising and having a charismatic touch that made him popular among students.

Times researcher Norma Kaufman contributed to this story.